Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

Holidays in hell

Saturday, August 12, 2000, Utopia Boarding House, Skegness

I've finished packing. Barry Windermere has just wheezed up to the attic to demand compensation for the damage Glenn did (inadvertently) to the Queen Mother's photograph. I refused to give him any more, and told him that the use of unguarded candles is a contravention of the 1981 Hotels & Boarding House Act. He believed this ridiculous lie, and scuttled back down the dark stairs with the stained carpet.

The rest of the family have voted to continue the holiday elsewhere. I was the only one who voted to return home. I feel like a contestant on Big Brother. (Incidentally, that Nicholas is a great bloke, I hope he wins.)

Sunday, Plot 8, Sunny Sands Caravan Site, Hunstanton

There are seven of us squeezed into a six-berth caravan. Rosie and Mad Dog Jackson arrived last night on his Harley-Davidson. I refuse to call him Mad Dog as he requested; it is bad enough having to be seen in his greasy, denimed company. My mother told me proudly that "he's very high up in the Hell's Angels hierarchy". She astounds me. If Rosie was my daughter, I would lock her away in a tall tower until she had woken up from the spell that Jackson has cast over her.

My whole family are in love with him. William and Glenn hang on to his every word. It is now Glenn's ambition to be inducted into the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Chapter of the Hell's Angels. Apparently, there are six of them living in a maisonette in Rosebud Drive. The induction ceremony involves eating raw tripe while being hung upside down from a tree. I said to Glenn that I had other plans for him. That he is to study the history of art at a decent university. Glenn muttered under his breath "Art fart", but I let it go. My nerves are in shreds. I couldn't face another acrimonious confrontation.

The caravan is too confined. I can hear everything through the plywood walls. I overheard my mother saying to Ivan Braithwaite tonight, "Ivan, why are we all cramped up in a caravan in Hunstanton when we can easily afford to stay in a decent Aparthotel with free watersports somewhere abroad?" He chuckled in that maddening way that makes me want to rip his smarmy head off his hairy shoulders and said, "Pauline, you're in denial about your working-class heritage. I'm doing this for you. I want you to rediscover your roots".

My mother snapped that she had spent most of her adult life trying to better herself and hoped to be lower-middle class by the time she was 55, and middle-middle class at death. "The Co-Op won't be doing my funeral," she hissed. I heard her move along their bed in the kitchen (it doubles as a work-top and ironing board during the day). I was glad that their ardour was cooling. I was sick of having to listen to their pathetic attempts at love-making every night. Ivan is having trouble with his prostate. Fortunately, Mad Dog and Rosie are sleeping outside under the awning extension on a double Therm-A-Rest.

Monday

Jackson has gone into Norwich to have a drink with Professor Malcolm Bradbury. He is hoping to get some lecturing work out of him. Is Professor Bradbury being terrorised into giving Jackson work? Has the notoriously gentle academic been threatened and intimidated? It would explain why that monosyllabic thicko, Jackson, has two degrees.

Thursday

I took the boys to Wells-next-the-Sea today. As we strolled up the crowded main street, I saw Glenn looking with interest at a tray of tripe in a butcher's shop window. "It don't look too bad, Dad," he said. "I could get that down my neck."

Friday

The Hog Roast-On-The-Beach has been cancelled due to the unreliability of English pigs.